October 2, 2012 Leave a Comment
In a recent segment of the CBS Evening News, reporter, Mark Strassman shared how a failing Macon, Georgia school district is mandating Mandarin language lessons in order to stave off a staggering fifty percent failure to graduate rate. Within three years, all 25,000 students in Bibb County will be learning Mandarin. In fact, third graders at Sonny Carter Elementary School have already begun.
July 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
A few weeks back I attended the Useful Social Media conference in New York. It was refreshing to meet people face-to-face, to learn about the new and inventive ways companies are using social media, and to commiserate over the many challenges and roadblocks that still exist when it comes to corporate social media. In many ways social has seen a great evolution, but in other ways social is in its infancy. When it comes to gamification, 2012 shined a spotlight on gaming and game mechanics – the strenghts, the opportunities, and the room for growth.
In a pre-conference workshop, gamification platform provider, Bunchball summarized the game mechanics that motivate and engage. They talked about the importance of progress (levels in games, miles and points, progress bars), status (standings in leaderboards, likes and followers, communities, groups and teams), and rewards (access to exclusives and perks, early boarding/upgrades, recognition). More importantly, the key takeaway was that gamification works best when tied to a business case.
June 12, 2012 3 Comments
A few weeks ago a friend of mine, Gessica Silverman, participated in the Somerville Open Studios. I’ve known Gess for what seems like ages, although in reality it has only been 6 years. I still fondly recall the day she put her wish out there for the world to hear and told me she wanted to “make art.” The bravery it took to say her wish aloud and the work it took to bring it to life was inspiring. It has been many years since we colluded on ways to make art a reality. Now, Gess is doing what she loves best and sharing her talents with the world.
When we learned of Gess’ art show, my husband and I thought it would make a great family event. We packed the kids in the car and headed for Somerville. At the studio, Gess walked us through her pieces and explained how they were made, what they were made from, the concept behind the pieces, the parts of the art making process that gave her energy, and the parts of the process that proved to be challenging. Gess did a great job breaking the conversation down into kid friendly bits. However, while polite, the kids looked like they had some bottled up energy.
February 29, 2012 1 Comment
My youngest brother was born on February 29th. Given 2012 is a Leap Year, my kids are fascinated with the fact their Uncle is “only 9-years old.” Technically, he’s really 36, but who’s counting 
The concept of Leap Year is confusing. In explaining why we have Leap Year to my Kindergartener, he quizzically asked, “So…the reason he [meaning his Uncle] is 9-years old, but looks older than most 9-year old’s is that when he was born, he was really 10?”
I love how children fill in the gaps by making up and testing assumptions. Though I wasn’t quite sure about the soundness of the reasoning (LOL!), my Kindergartener was on the right track when thinking about making up time. I wondered how to simply describe Leap Year. Here’s where I’ve landed.
A calendar year has 365 days
While, a solar year, or the length of time it takes the Earth to travel around the sun, is 365-1/4 days
Every four years, one extra day is added into the calendar year to catch up to the solar year (i.e 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 1)
I’m going to try this description with my Kindergartener tonight. Wish me luck.
January 20, 2012 Leave a Comment
The other day a couple of my colleagues were talking about sustainability when someone mentioned how FedEx optimized their truck routes so that drivers only take right turns. Why, you ask? Supposedly, right turns save on gas.
I was a bit skeptical and figured the story had to be an urban legend, so I did some digging. The story is indeed true. Well, mostly true. The company that implemented the right turn program was UPS, not FedEx. And, UPS does take some left turns…but only about 10% of the time. Here’s how the right turn policy came about.
A few years ago, UPS was facing pressures to cut costs. UPS also had an environmental stewardship policy. In thinking about how to solve their budget challenge, UPS put two seemingly unconnected ideas together.
November 29, 2011 3 Comments
There are many definitions of what strategy is, yet most people find the notion of strategy confusing. Rather than adding to the confusion about strategy, we’ll look at the question from another angle. Here are three things strategy isn’t. These observations come from participating in strategy development sessions and conversations within dozens of organizations. During this time, these tenants have rung true:
November 17, 2011 4 Comments
So, asking what to do with a kid who loves math may sound like a silly question. But for a parent (namely me) who naturally gravitates to language arts rather than numbers, having a child who loves math is quite foreign. It’s like having a kid who loves vegetables. Though I’m prone to memorization when it comes to math, my oldest son was born with an ability to understand mathematical concepts and theories. He’ll turn anything into a math assignment. This even includes writing a book report. Talk about creativity. LOL!
November 15, 2011 Leave a Comment
Though Halloween was a few weeks ago, the memories (and the candy) still linger. We started a Halloween tradition where we get together with neighbors for pizza, then go out as a group for trick-or-treating. This year was no different. After a bit of dinner and socializing, we began our two hour trek through the neighborhood.
The kids went from home to home ringing doorbells and thanking neighbors for candy. Interestingly, when we arrived at the home of the local dentist, my 8-year old son saw toothbrushes at the doorway and asked if he could have a toothbrush rather than candy.
August 24, 2011 6 Comments
Image by orkboi via Flickr
There’s a lot of talk about creativity these days. A sweeping number of companies around the globe cite creativity as the number one competency for the future. Creativity beats out rigor, management discipline, integrity and even vision for this coveted position.
About a month ago, I ran a creativity training program for an advertising agency. The folks who attended the training included representatives from strategy, account management, and project management. As I invited participants to introduce themselves, a curious trend emerged. More so than any other discipline, project management professionals described themselves as “not creative.” This is unfortunate as the prevailing question in the field of creativity has shifted from, “Are you creative?” to “How are you creative?”
August 23, 2011 Leave a Comment
Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr
With the back to school season upon us, memories of my elementary school years flash before me. I don’t know about you, but as a child I knew instinctively what type of student I was and what type of student I wasn’t. While subjects like English, Language and History felt natural, I was never one for math. I was reminded of my gut feeling about math as I read the New York Times article, “In Future Math Whizzes, Signs of ‘Number Sense’“. The article confirms math abilities can be identified even before children enter school.
The New York Times reports children as young as three have a ‘number sense’, or intuition when it comes to mathematical concepts. In research that first appeared in the Developmental Sciences journal, Dr. Melissa Libertus, psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, found preschoolers were able to use their number sense to estimate whether there were more blue or yellow dots flashing on the screen even before they could count. The children with better number sense were also better at simple math problems.